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lifeinthesnaill's avatar
Apr 11, 2016

Mold in the ceiling...What should I do?

I have just repaired a leak in my roof. Water intruded from the hole in the roof for the black water tank vent located in the closet. This hole has become unsealed in the past and caused a small portion of the ceiling (maybe 4" X 4") to rot. It was painted over (before I owned it). I decided to tear out the small portion of visibly rotted wood. After removing the section with the saw on my leatherman, I saw what appears to be mold on the insulation foam and the rafter. So, I got a little carried away and ripped out all of the ceiling wood above the closet. The whole thing has mold. I am thinking that it's probably spread to the entire rv. But I'm not sure. Ignorance was bliss. I sprayed the the moldy areas with Concrobium. scrubbed with a scotch pad, but I cant get it off. Can you folks tell me how dangerous this mold is? Have you seen this before? It's not like any mold I've ever seen. I started to think maybe it was an adhesive to connect the thin ceiling wood to the insulation and rafter. But that wouldn't explain why it's covering the only unpainted wall in the closet. Must be mold. Also pictured are tiny black "pebbles" mixed in with the mold. They are hard little granules. What are these things? What do you think I should do? I don't want to tear out the entire ceiling. Maybe I have to. But I'm on the road right now. No time for that. I was thinking I should just try my best clean it and then paint a new piece of particle board with anti-mold something or other to replace the wood I removed. Pics are here
  • homestudiomusician wrote:
    Hello LifeInTheSnailLane,

    I saw your post and wanted to respond as I could tell you are very concerned about the mold problem and I'm getting ready to investigate this, myself, on a 96 Fleetwood Bounder coach that I just purchased and am getting ready to rehab.

    What you should do to investigate the "unknown" about whether you have to take off the whole roof area is simply remove the trim panel pieces to ANY roof vents (from inside the coach, easy and underneath the roof vents) and see if the exposed wood has the same mold spores in the wood.

    That would be my first step of investigation.

    My second step would be to see if you can open any cabinets and find mold spores inside the kitchen cabinets etc?

    Then, third, in terms of how to kill the mold you can do so by just using simple kitchen bleach mixed with water to more than a 50/50 ratio and that will kill anything.

    Give those items a shot and let me know how it goes!


    Hey, thanks for your response. So the little black granules are mold spores? I see those in the seams of the rv in many places. I see some right now by the stove below the hood vent/fan. I've noticed these since I first started my trip 7 months ago. I just thought it was deteriorated I don't know what because the rv is old 1984. Well, I don't seem to have any health problems so I guess it's not too bad.
  • Hello LifeInTheSnailLane,

    I saw your post and wanted to respond as I could tell you are very concerned about the mold problem and I'm getting ready to investigate this, myself, on a 96 Fleetwood Bounder coach that I just purchased and am getting ready to rehab.

    What you should do to investigate the "unknown" about whether you have to take off the whole roof area is simply remove the trim panel pieces to ANY roof vents (from inside the coach, easy and underneath the roof vents) and see if the exposed wood has the same mold spores in the wood.

    That would be my first step of investigation.

    My second step would be to see if you can open any cabinets and find mold spores inside the kitchen cabinets etc?

    Then, third, in terms of how to kill the mold you can do so by just using simple kitchen bleach mixed with water to more than a 50/50 ratio and that will kill anything.

    Give those items a shot and let me know how it goes!

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